


reverent

by halfasgoodatanything



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adorable Steve Rogers, Adorable Tony Stark, Insecure Tony, M/M, Pre-Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, so soft, without knowing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 13:29:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17602253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfasgoodatanything/pseuds/halfasgoodatanything
Summary: this is for gee, a bit of softness and angst for my friend! tony is having a bit of an anxious episode and steve, the tipsy dumbass gives him love and kisses for his anxious boyfriend.





	reverent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itsallAvengers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/gifts).



There is no reason to be upset.

 

Steve is having a good time, Nat and Bucky are talking about something intently, and Clint and Peter are two peas in a pod- everyone in his life that he loves are happy, and it stands to reason that he should be to.

 

He’s not.

 

He’s jittery and he’s worried and he wants a drink, but he can’t have that, and right now he can’t have Steve either, because he’s talking to an old war buddy, and he had better things to do than see Tony worrying over nothing.

 

But he can’t stop, can’t stop thinking about how none of them has noticed how he hasn’t said a thing, how his best friend this night has been a sparkling apple juice. Steve had wanted the whole party to be dry, but before he could say that would be too much for his sake, Clint had remarked it for him.

 

And now he’s got himself as company, which is just fine. He’s not thinking about how all the people he loves are doing just fine without his input, how it’s probably making their lives better that he’s finally _shutting the fuck up._

 

He’s been annoying them lately, he knows. 

 

It’s stupid anyway, the stuff he rambles about. He was talking to DUM-E about a new idea and Bruce had asked him to hush. The new coffee had come in and he’d rambled about how nice it was, and he loved it, and Nat had said she couldn’t process that in the morning.

 

He knows they love him, doesn’t know how to stop thinking they don’t, knows how weak they’d think he was if they knew the amount of pain it was putting him through at the thought he doesn’t have their approval or affection.

 

It’s too much to ask though, that the Merchant of Death could have the kind of love a family brings. He has their tolerance, and he knows that’s lucky. He’s got Steve, for know, a man he’s convinced he’s tricked into loving him, and so he can’t know the way Tony’s mind craves it.

 

So he trembles, drinks apple cider and watches on his own, because Steve is busy, and so is everyone else.

 

But Steve walks over to him, all old school charm that he doesn’t even knows he has, bashful and beautiful and just a little drunk on Thor’s mead, and smiling at him so bright it just might blind him.

 

“Hi,” Steve says, wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist and blue eyes so warm and fond, faces close like he wants to ask for a kiss but is too shy. 3 months on of loving Tony and he still can’t make himself kiss him without looking like he’s asking for too much.

 

But Tony is greedy and Steve is addictive, the feeling of him heady and warm and _good_ and Tony needs good things. He needs Steve in a way it’s embarrassing to admit.

 

“Hi there gorgeous,” he says, tugging him closer, and Steve preens blushing and his head falling into Tony’s neck, and wow, his boyfriend’s more gone than he thought.

 

“Missed you,” and oh, there he is, warm around Tony and pulling him closer because he _did,_ and this confuses things he was thinking of before, because Steve, beautiful, kind, incredible Steve is here loving him, present and good.

 

“Been right here,” he says, letting himself be tender with the man he loves. Steve looks like something plucked from a painting, too good to be real, fondness in everything he does with Tony. It’s almost reverent, the way he touches him, and it’s so unfair, because if one of them is holy, it isn’t Tony.

 

“Been somewhere else,” Steve says, kissing the shell of his ear.

 

But he’s not anywhere else right now, not really, when Steve’s so close to him, treats him like he deserves him and more, gives him the best he can.

 

“I love you,” Steve says, and there is going to be a night where Tony spills how insecure he feels, how his place in this makeshift family always feels like it’s resting on rubble. There’s going to be a day where he breaks open under Steve’s touch like he always was meant to. It could even be tomorrow.

 

Tonight though, he’s going to soften under his lover’s touch and let it heal him in ways that words can’t, and be grateful for the man  \\]who loves him so dearly a little aloofness results in _this._

He’s lucky, and he sips sparkling apple juice with the love of his life, and he knows it.


End file.
